I don't know why, during my 10 years as the arts editor of San Francisco magazine, I never attended a San Francisco Ballet gala until last night. Especially because, unlike with SF Symphony and SF Opera's gown- and tux-strewn opening nights, SF Ballet's gala program is performed on that one evening only. The regular programs consist of either an evening-length story ballet (such as Giselle, which opens in a couple of days) or three short, more abstract ballets. At the galas, SF Ballet offers nine or ten dances or excerpts, to showcase the splendid company that artistic director Helgi Tomasson has built in his 26 years here.On opening nights, all three of the city's major arts organizations tend to forgo challenging works for crowd-pleasers, and the ballet's are no exception. Not that there's anything wrong with crowd-pleasers when they are performed so excitingly well. And Tomasson is great at mixing it up, always putting on the bill both classical and contemporary works that vary widely in tone and approach. So last night, for instance, we saw a pas de deux from the 1869/2003 Don Quixote (loved that stunning red-and-black tutu) and the fourth movement and finale of Balanchine's 1947 Symphony in C (men in black, corps of women in white tutus).
We saw Tomasson's own 2009 divertissement from Swan Lake, with four dancers in Russian-style velvet costumes, fur hats, and boots. By contrast, we saw the U.S. premiere of the 2006 New Pizzicato Polka, about which let me just say that if Chaplin had been a ballet star, this is the dance he would have choreographed, for three dancers in pale suits and black bowler and top hats. It was so clever and fun, and so was the excerpt from the 1997 Alles Walzer, with music by Johann Strauss Jr. and dancing by two supremely gifted and charismatic dancers who were anything but formal or staid.
That night, after the rows of dancers and conductor Martin West took their bows, Tomasson came out for his own well-deserved cheers. But that's not really his style (he never does it after regular programs); I'll bet even in his years as a principal dancer with Balanchine at the New York City Ballet, he wasn't much of a divo. He seemed most comfortable slipping through the ranks of the white tutus and off to the side, where, as the curtain descended, you could see him applauding his wonderful dancers with the rest of us.
Photo: Sarah Van Patten and Tiit Helimet in the world premiere of Val Caniparoli's Double Stop, c Erik Tomasson
